The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

Continued from page 5 over my leisure time. Then two years later, in 1955, I got married and started a family.” And a career. “1 went looking for a factory job,” he says. “But when the HR Manager saw that I'd finished high school, he offered me a position in their Cost Accounting Depart- ment. I’d work in accounting all my professional life.” Model planes may have remained in the background of John’s life forever, had it not been for a bit of unex- pected extra time on his hands. “Thad an hour to kill before picking up my wife one night, and spent it at the Markham Hobby Show. A man in one booth invited me to a meeting of indoor flyers, which was a new form of flying to me. Seeing the longer flight times possible inside, I was hooked. That hour ged my life.” Numerous design categories exist among model plane builders. John focused on “free-flight” models. “Some of the ones I build use propellers to lift the plane off the ground, just like a real one. Others are gliders, which launch from a catapult and stay in the air thanks to thermals.” John builds his planes using raw materials, and fre- quently, from designs he has developed himself. “L use balsa wood for the main structure, and in some cases, thin mylar to cover the framework.” The assembly is painstaking and detailed. Balsa wood is available in strips, which John trims to the required 239 QUEEN STREET, PORT PERRY f PHONE: 905-982-2001 FAX: 905.982.2753 taylorcompanyinteriors@gmail.com 6 FOCUS - MARCH 2015 length and thickness. The struts and supports he fash- ions are comparable in dimension to a toothpick. The mylar needed to cover some designs is thinner commercial products like Saran Wrap. “The finished products can weigh as little as one gram,” John explains. “You can see why they’re only appropriate indoors. A wind gust outside would in- stantly destroy them.” Tightly-wound rubber bands provide the necessary power to the propeller. And again, John has a hand in their manufacture. “I buy rubber by the pound, and use a special, cali- brated stripper to bring it to the optimal thickness.” All rubber, he explains with a smile, is not created ual. “Batches have differing strengths, so some can gen- erate more energy than others. Years ago, the rubber they made was better quality than what we get today. Blame Tiger Woods for that!” Tiger Woods? “Most golf balls contained an internal wind of rubber until Tiger announced he hit a solid ball. The rubber industry’s quantity-manufactured declined sharply, and with it the quality. It made those old batches a desirable collector’s item among model plane builders.” The props are themselves works of art. Balsa strips are meticulously shaped with water and placed over a bottle, which serves as a tiny jig. The open-frame designs are skinned in mylar. John’s designs face the same challenges as full-sized aircraft. “The propeller for a model plane requires the same helical design as a real one for greatest efficiency. You're ruled by the same aerodynamic forces as regu- lar planes.” In the air, John’s airplane flies gracefully. Unlike its full-sized counterparts, the model’s propeller turns al- most lazily. Still, the rhythmic rotation is ample to keep the plane aloft for a seemingly indefinite time. Other than obstacles in the room - light fixtures and heating bulkheads create momentary problems at John’s house - the plane floats forward slowly but effortlessly, fol- lowing its own course at the mercy of currents created pple.ca APPLE CABI INAS Ltd. 48 Water St., Port Perry, ON (905) 985-3767